Sharing Google Forms

An article by Darin Wagner    No Comments

A colleague wanted to create a course survey for students and sought my assistance. I recommended using Google Docs since he wanted to manipulate the survey results and create various charts and graphs for data analysis. After creating his spreadsheet we went through the process of creating a form that feeds the responses right to his document.

He was so amazed with the tool, process and results that he wanted to share the survey with some of his peers. I was first concerned that if he shared the spreadsheet, other teachers would be able to modify his survey. Second, I was unsure if forms could be shared.

To test this I had the teacher share the spreadsheet with me but with “read-only” privileges. This assured him that I could not modify the original but get a look at it within my Google Docs list. Once I opened the spreadsheet I went to the File menu and selected Make a copy… When prompted, I named the copy and saved it with my other documents. I now had a duplicate of his survey that I could edit.

The final test was to see if I could edit the associated form. After choosing the Form link from the menu, I chose Edit form and was pleased to see that I could. I now had a copy of the original that I could edit accordingly without messing with his survey.

So what does this mean for the classroom teacher?

• Well, in this environment, it means that sharing similar surveys among colleagues with Google Doc accounts is easy.
• It allows for the collection of data individually, but with consistency among the included questions.
• Valuable time is saved since every teacher is not creating their own survey.
• Data can be stored and compared from class to class, semester to semester, and year to year.